The man most likely to be Australia’s next treasurer,
Joe Hockey
, is also its most misunderstood politician.

It’s widely accepted that Hockey is one of Parliament’s most effortless performers. He possesses a Clintonesque capacity to connect with the community. Ask any Liberal who they want with them in a campaign, and Hockey’s the first pick. Journalists who travel with him relay stories of being mobbed at gigs.

Yet this laconic hulk of a man, who was fathered by a Palestinian orphan, is chronically underestimated by Australia’s elites. The lazy caricature confuses his physical and psychological traits. That Joe is soft and indolent.

The problem with Hockey is that his humanity and authenticity are both an asset and a liability. In contrast to many peers, he struggles to subjugate his integrity to the political altar of opportunism.

As one former adviser recalls, this gives the appearance of inconsistency. Penny Wong is a master at staying maniacally on-message irrespective of the content. But ask Hockey enough times what he thinks and he will relent.

In November 2009,
Nick Minchin
and
Tony Abbott
privately offered Hockey the party leadership on the proviso he dropped his advocacy of an emissions trading scheme. Hockey said no. Some allege this betrayed weakness, that it raises questions as to whether Hockey has real mettle.

In truth, Hockey chose the hard road. Easy street was taking the deal. He’d be leader today and probably our next prime minister. Instead, Hockey reached out to his constituency, in an infamous tweet, to ask whether he had failed them on climate change. Ethically, it was the correct choice.

Hockey’s authenticity also burst through when he broke ranks with
Scott Morrison
over funeral arrangements for the 30 asylum seekers who perished in the Christmas Island tragedy. Morrison said the cost was unreasonable. Hockey said, as a compassionate migrant nation, Australians had an obligation to assist.

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I witnessed Hockey’s reflexive desire to do the right thing first-hand during the 2010 banking debate. The “top end of town" is a vital Liberal Party base not to be disenfranchised needlessly. Yet as Minister for Financial Services in the Howard government, Hockey had seared into him the risks of moral hazard by the 2001 collapse of HIH.

At the remarkably young age of 32 he had been responsible for APRA, ASIC and the ACCC. The commercial lawyer in Hockey knew exactly what he was doing when he controversially threw down the gauntlet to policymakers about “too big to fail" banks. Crucially, he pushed this meme against the preferences of internal thought-leaders. Time has vindicated his views.

One of
Malcolm Turnbull
’s enduring strengths is that people use him as a canvas on which to project aspirations. Turnbull is a kaleidoscope of vaulted visions for folks on the left- and right-hand sides of the political spectrum.

In contrast, Hockey’s humanity tends to reflect back your vulnerabilities. He’s like an echo chamber: those who pass judgment often reveal more about themselves than their target.

The physical taunts are another deception, and don’t do justice to his resilience. A slowing metabolism and brick-like build did not stop Hockey from traversing the Kokoda trail or climbing Mt Kilimanjaro. Few of similar size would have volunteered to do the same thing.

To lift the lid on Hockey’s character, you need to study his heritage.

Hockey’s history has been forged from two ores: adversity and a trader’s entrepreneurship. Hockey’s dad, Richard, was born a Catholic Palestinian in Bethlehem. Yet he never touched his own father’s flesh. There is but one grainy photo that remains of Joseph Hokeidunian. What we know is that he was an Armenian trader and landowner based in Syria.

In 1914 the Catholic Church asked Joseph to spy on the Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. He moved to Jerusalem and took a job with the British government. In 1917 he helped oversee the reconstruction of Beersheba after it was taken from the Turks following the charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade.

Joseph left Jerusalem before his son was born, and Richard spent his first years in an orphanage. Like his father, Richard served the British in Palestine. Fudging his age, he enlisted in the army at 16, and was a warrant officer working in intelligence by 18.

Richard came to Australia in 1948 seeking a better life. Early on he was a Labor Party foot-soldier. While John Winston Howard owes credit to a British war-time leader, Joseph Benedict Hockey can claim an Australian one. The wrinkle is that Ben Chifley came from the wrong side of politics.

The credit crunch in 1974 brought Richard’s prosperous property business to its knees, and he blamed Gough Whitlam for the macro environment. A nine-year-old Joe swept the shopfront stairs while his (unlicensed) brothers drove customers to visit sites.

Richard’s wife, Beverley, hailed from a family dominated by a very strong, single-parent matriarch. Joe’s great-grandmother was one of the largest landowners in North Sydney, and traded shares into her eighties. They were centre-right stalwarts.

It was the hardships of the 1970s that united the Hockey household behind the Liberal Party. Young Joe intuited that politicians made decisions that could have real-world consequences.

Fast forward to the present. I’m standing with Hockey outside his office. He’s engaged in a tricky policy debate with two other men. The issue is the merits of RBA currency intervention.

One, Hockey’s chief of staff, is the former head of fixed-income at UBS, and highly regarded in the markets. The other, a senior economics adviser, was previously ANZ’s deputy chief economist.

Both look older than Hockey, and carry the grey flecks and gravity-drawn faces of men who have grappled with crises. I find this striking because so many politicians recruit younger, inexperienced acolytes who rarely second-guess their masters.

The impression becomes sharper as the discussion unfolds. The three converse as equals. There is no artifice or hierarchy. At various points, each adviser disagrees with his boss. Yet he doesn’t mind. This dialogue is a means to an end: Hockey has a trader’s focus on the truth.

The most successful traders are imbued with deep humility because they cannot afford to be wrong for long. They are notoriously scornful of economists’ zealotry.

Hockey has this DNA on both sides of his family. And in 1994 he married one of the finest bond traders in the country.

Richard Hokeidunian came here with nothing. He’s bequeathed us a leader with considerable untapped talent.